The Train to Paris (2 page)

‘I do say so. Mine is Élodie Lavelle. One cannot do much with that.'

‘No, I guess you can't.'

The drinks arrived. I ignored the coffee and gulped the beer. She did not appreciate this and approached her drink more carefully. I had grown fond of a cold beer while in Madrid, where it was cheaper than water and came with a plate of
chopitos
. Like I had no choice but to get drunk on a warm afternoon.

‘Come, you look terrible,' she said, after staring at me in silent fascination. ‘What is the matter?'

‘I didn't have a ticket booked to Paris. They assured me in Madrid that I could get one at the border.'

‘Ah yes. That old story. And when you arrived here they told you that there was a strike.'

‘No, they said all the trains to Paris were full.'

‘Have you not read the papers?'

‘I don't pay much attention to the news.'

‘It's this damned pension debacle. The unions are siding with the protestors, so only two trains are leaving tomorrow. Sunday will be the same. I hear that they're protesting up in Paris as we speak.'

This made me wonder if Ethan, my musician flatmate in Paris, had joined them. He found that sort of thing thrilling, even though the French protests were more like carnivals, complete with singing and dancing.

‘So you're stuck here, too?' I said.

‘Until tomorrow. The sweet little man has put me on the morning train, the last seat. Perhaps you will have a harder time of it, though?'

‘Perhaps.'

We lapsed into silence again. I tried to work out what her beauty might hide. My own appearance hid nothing. My shirt was old and frayed. Her dress could have been bought brand new from the most fashionable of all stores in Paris. But on closer inspection I could see that there was a cigarette burn below the waist. She leant forward to cover it up.

‘Are we going to leave it at that?' she asked.

‘Sorry. Of course we aren't. What brings you to this town?'

‘That is more like it. I came down here to visit my mother—she is not well. I have no idea why she had to choose the village of Ascain for her retirement. It would not surprise me if she did it to make me travel.'

‘Is your mother French?'

‘She is, although she claims to be Basque. And yes, my father was English, in case you could not tell. Handy citizenship, although I don't identify with either of them.'

There was something in her accent that was neither French nor English. It reminded me of the transatlantic voices the great American actresses used to put on, in the days when drawling was not permitted on-screen.

She sat up straight as though she had said too much.

‘Now Lawrence, you cannot get away that easily. Where are you from?'

‘I have no idea where I'm from.'

‘Oh. None at all? Why don't we start with where you were born, then?'

‘New Zealand. That doesn't exactly help.'

‘No wonder your accent is so confused. What draws a small-town boy like you to Paris?'

‘I'm about to start my year at the Sorbonne, studying art history.'

This made her wince, as though I had told a lame joke. She raised her thin eyebrows. Every single hair aligned.

‘Oh dear. Why would you want to do that? Do you want to be a painter?'

‘If I had the talent. Or if I could find the inspiration.'

‘Well Lawrence, I cannot think of anything duller than studying something you don't ever want to do.'

‘I can't think of anything better. I know, it won't get me anywhere, but it is interesting. Not dull at all.'

‘So you were in Madrid. You must have been soaking up that crock of bore in the Prado. You went nowhere near the Thyssen, and you walked through the Reina Sofía but hated everything about it. Too modern and edgy for your liking.'

There was truth to this assessment, even though I did not care to admit it. She had penetrated me. I tried to think of a way to force her back out.

‘How did you do that?' I asked. She laughed, and I wondered what there was to laugh about.

‘I am enjoying this. You're an open book.'

‘Or it was a good guess.' I furrowed my brow. ‘So what area would you say I specialise in?'

‘You have chosen Paris as your place of study, so my guess is that you specialise in post-Revolutionary Romantic works. And you have positioned yourself close enough to the Louvre so that you can go there every day.'

‘Nice try. In fact it's the Impressionists, focussing particularly on the transition from Realism heralded by Manet.'

She drew in her lips. They were attractive lips, but they were also chapped. No amount of lipstick could hide that. She took a cigarette from her handbag and asked if I minded, although I could tell that she would have smoked anyway.

‘Do you live in Paris?' I asked.

‘I do. A pied-à-terre in the Eighth, one in London, one in New York. I have feet all over the world.'

‘Three houses? What do you use them for?'

‘Parties, usually. I need a space to entertain.'

‘How do you own them? Did you inherit them from your family?'

‘My husband owns the ones in Paris and New York. But yes, I did inherit the flat in London.'

She sounded flustered, as though it was too much information to keep track of. I tried not to let my disappointment show at the mention of her husband. There was the danger of treading on somebody's toes. But the danger was also attractive. I started to imagine that I could get to know her, that we could spend the night together. It was a joke to myself, but I imagined feeling her thighs beneath my hands, the thrill of reaching beneath a married woman's dress. It was a ridiculous prospect. I knew nothing about women, except for what I had pieced together from overheard whisperings at school, and the occasional nude painting I had studied. Élodie was like nobody I had ever seen before, and yet she was the epitome of what men were supposed to want. Why had I never come across somebody like her before? And why had women never shown interest in me, until now?

I had no idea what to make of her. She was sitting across the table from me, and I could see those thighs as she crossed them. They were tangible.

‘What are you doing tonight?' I asked.

‘I thought you would never ask. Who knows what might happen? Needless to say, I am not returning to Ascain.'

‘Do you know any hotels in this town?'

‘No, sadly. I have never been stuck here before.' She bent in, conspiratorially. ‘We should go on an adventure. Biarritz is always nice at this time of the year. Or we could go over the border to San Sebastián.'

‘Right. There's one problem, though. I don't have any money.'

‘Excuse me?'

‘I'm nearly out of cash.'

‘How were you planning to pay for a ticket?'

‘I don't make many plans.'

‘Obviously not.'

‘But I have a discount pass, so it shouldn't cost much.'

‘That does help.' She disapproved. The concept of a discount must have been foreign to her. ‘So you cannot pay for a hotel, or a taxi, or anything. What were you going to do with yourself?'

‘I don't know. If worst comes to worst, I thought I could sleep in the train station.'

She laughed, a high flutter that suited her superficial smile.

‘Why that's absurd, Lawrence. Luckily for you, I have a soft spot for hopeless causes. Come, we must have some fun while we still can.'

I went to pay for the drinks with the last of my cash. But, before I could, she had laid a platinum credit card on the table. It carried somebody else's name.

‘Keep the money,' she said. ‘Who knows when you might need it?'

2

There were no taxis
outside the train station, so we sat and waited on concrete blocks that were either benches or partitions. Élodie treated hers as a luxurious sofa. She kicked her heels up and busied herself reapplying her make-up. A breeze had come in from the bay, and I took a nondescript black sports jacket from my luggage. She eyed it as if it were a
clochard
's blanket.

‘What's wrong with it?' I asked.

‘It is far too big for you. A young man with such an enviable frame as yours needs a good tailor. If we ever make it to Paris, I will show you where to find the very best. And they will teach you not to wear it with an illfitted old shirt. It isn't the done thing.'

I took the jacket off again. Inside the station, the Dax train was about to leave. It would not be worth taking, I decided, even if it got me to Paris any faster.

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘In what sense?'

‘In all senses.'

‘We are going to Biarritz, where there are nice hotels and nice restaurants, neither of which exists around here. Is there a problem with that?'

‘What about the hotels around here?'

I was already growing tired of Élodie's insistent snobbery. If she wanted me to feel inferior, then her motive was useless; she had already won on that score. She gave a theatrical shrug, as though she had prepared for this question a long time ago.

‘Very well,' she said. ‘You stay at the hotel up there.' She gestured to a building across the street with peeling plaster and an ancient drainpipe. ‘I will amuse myself.'

‘I would if I had any money. Is it really necessary to go all the way to Biarritz for the sake of a hotel?'

‘I cannot sleep in an inadequate bed, and nor should you. We must do the best with what we have.'

‘And what do we have? Your husband's credit card?'

These words made her quiet. I thought of the joke that I had made to myself, and how wrong it was. She was a married woman, and the rules were different. I began to walk off without much purpose or direction.

‘Where are you going?' she called out.

‘Wherever I don't have to incur debt to strangers.'

‘You won't get far with no money.'

I stopped. She was still sitting on the concrete bench, the picture of composure.

‘Don't presume that you know everything about me and my husband, just because of your slight powers of observation.'

‘I don't want to know about either of you.'

‘We both know what a lie that is. Come back here.'

I disobeyed the order and set off again. The weather was changing—it would be a cool night. I didn't wish to sleep in the drafty station, but I didn't want to entangle myself in whatever game Élodie Lavelle had planned for us either. The addition of a husband made it all the more repulsive. I was above that sort of cruelty.

I had no idea where I was going. The road stretched towards the town centre alongside the station. As it climbed, I could see the Dax train beginning its journey. The overhead lines made a layered backdrop to the scene. The rail yard was rust-coloured, and this matched the barren hill protruding from the Spanish side of the bay. It would have been a Gauguin landscape, if not for the parking lot that stood beside the rail lines. Gnarled trees and low hedges had been planted to divide the lot from the road and they were patchy and untended.

The road steered away from the rail yard and I was confronted by menacing silence. A lone car drove past, the only sound apart from the fading steel wheels on steel track.

I stopped walking, breathing heavily. I needed water. The shops were closed and hostile; their shiny white surfaces reflecting the low sun repelled everything.

It did not take me long to change my mind. She was, after all, my ticket out of Hendaye. She was alluring, and she was interested in me. It felt as though I had already met her a long time ago. Somehow she knew who I was.

I turned to face my reflection in a darkened shop window. My hair was long and curly and tousled from travel, falling over the edge of my collar. The old shirt showed my skinny, pale arms and the faint patch of hair at the top of my chest. I thought of seeing a tailor with Élodie, of wearing a suit that fit me to within an inch and accentuated my slender shape. Her vague promise had released this fantasy in me.

Then I looked closer. The sleepless nights in Madrid had drawn dark circles beneath my eyes, and they would not open wide in the sunlight. I told the uncertain young man staring back that I would not involve myself with this woman any further than I wanted to. But what did I want? There, I told my reflection, was the answer. I smiled at him, and he smiled too, and I set off back in the direction I had come from.

She was waiting for me on the same concrete bench, and she had spread out a newspaper to read. Her eyes did not lift as I drew near. The paper was a few days old.

‘Good Lord, that was fast,' she said. ‘I was sure it would be a good half hour before you saw sense.'

I sat down beside her. She folded the paper.

‘You get the prize,' I said. ‘Did any taxis come in my absence?'

‘Not a one.'

‘Do you think they might be on strike, too?'

‘Who knows?' She tucked the paper into her suitcase. ‘Come on, let's go for a walk. You must be in need of some food.'

‘Where should we go?'

‘Sadly we are not in a gastronomy capital. As I said, I have not been stuck here before. There might be something over by the fishing port.'

I followed her down the same road away from the station. It was admirable how she managed to handle herself in such a tall pair of heels. I scanned the collection of tags and stickers on the suitcase. I could recognise the airport code for Nassau, and a bold United States sticker. Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile were there too.

‘You've been to South America,' I called to her. She was a few paces ahead. I couldn't keep up with her.

‘Well observed, Lawrence.'

The sun had now reached its zenith, and it came out from behind a cloud to beat down on us.

‘I do wish I had a hat,' she said. ‘Women cannot wear hats these days. I find it very sad.'